“I don’t know who he thinks I am, but I’m certainly not going to be pushed aside by him and a few of his banker buddies,” Gillibrand just told me by phone. “As far as the name-calling, I wouldn’t accept that kind of name-calling from my 6-year-old son let alone someone who aspires to be a U.S. senator, and I think it’s a ridiculous attack that obviously does not affect me, but what it does do is it affects New York because he’s been unwilling to talk about issues: we have the highest unemployment we’ve seen in our lifetime and this requires serious issues and serious debate, and this is a person who’s clearly shown he is not serious because he devolves only to name-calling.”

“What his Op / Ed was was a regurgitation of failed Bush-McCain policies. So his agenda will not create jobs, in fact we know it will not create jobs. What we need is a tax credit plan where we create a tax credit for every new job created which is what I want to do, and that create a 15-20 percent tax credit for every incremental hour of employment. And that combined with more lending for small businesses by doing an SBA revolving fund and by doubling the leverage that credit unions can use will create much more liquidity for small businesses. Those two ideas create jobs. The ones offered by Harold Ford have been proven to fail,” Gillibrand said.

“The fact that Harold Ford says he’s running as an outsider is not only laughable, it’s a fraud. This guy literally grew up in Washington D.C. as his father was a Congressman, took the bar exam and failed and so then he waltzed into his father’s Congressional seat and now he’s the leader of the DLC, the most insider Democratic policy group there is in Washington,” she continued.

“I haven’t seen a lot of support, I’ve seen people being polite,” she said of his meeting with Lopez and other Democratic officials. “His candidacy is being pushed forward by a handful of his banker buddies. He’s a banker at Merril Lynch, and a few of his friends are propelling his candidacy. Democratic leaders are being polite and allowing him to come meet people, but…”